Grand Canyon R2R2R has been on the books for quite some time now (10500ft elevation gain over 45+ miles). Over the summer, when my long time friend Hakan told that he may be coming to Phoenix for a conference, I mentioned him about this run and after his plans were finalised, we decided to do it. I flew to Phoenix from San Francisco and we drove straight to the motel we were going to stay at the entrance of Grand Canyon National Park. After dinner and preparing our backpacks, we got up early to drive to the shuttle at 5am in the Park that would drop us at the South Kaibab trailhead. We started running down at 5:15am and passed a few big groups on the way down. The trail was very steep and dusty. I am used to long distance running and various format long races. Hakan is super fast in short-er distances but was new to this format. But he is an old mountaineer so there was no concern at all! Although we started our way back slow, we picked our pace but didn't forget to stop to enjoy the views and to take photos. On the way back up to the South Rim, instead of the steep trail we came down, we took the Bright Angel trail which is relatively longer but goes up more gradually. Besides, it had the views of the Colorado River under the Super Moon. After 17 hours (lots of stops and rests) we got back to the South Rim and went straight to the motel. We were very tired but ecstatic about our little adventure. The next day by midday I was already in SF and Hakan was already at his conference :)

Half Dome'un tepesine cikan celik kablolar / Steel cables leading to the top

Yosemite National Park is one of the best national parks in the US. I can easily say that national parks in this country are the one thing I love the most about here. It is about 3-4 hrs drive to San Francisco and attracts the crowds all the time as it has a lot of great vistas, hikes, and climbs. Half Dome is one of those attractions in the park whether you climb one of the routes on the wall leading to the top or whether you take the trail to reach the top hiking from behind (about 8 miles roundtrip with 4800ft elevation gain). The last part of the trail is "a steep hike" to the top and the Park service puts steel cables during the summer season. Because of the crowds though, the park service also put a cap on the number of people who can be on the wall or on the trail on any given day so one has to apply for permits in advance. Since the popular seasons are at the end of Spring and Summer, it is almost impossible to get a permit unless you act way in advance assuming you know exactly which day you will be going up there. I haven't had a chance to go to Half Dome because of this permit hassle until this year. I knew that off-season, one could apply for a day permit contacting the Park service 48hrs in advance and that's what I did on October 3 Monday. I also knew that the park service was going to remove the steel cables by October 15 (due to season change). I got the confirmation from the parking service the next day for my permit for October 5 so me and my friend Veronica left early in the am driving towards the park! It took us about 3.5 hrs and we were on the trail before noon and we moved as fast as we could and stopped only to take photos until the cables. After lunch and some more photos on top, we made our way down back to the trail and run back to our car. It took us about 6.5 hrs with all the stops from car to car. The 3-4 hr drive back to SF was a dread but ok. I was at home by midnight and very grateful for such a great escape. Taking a day off midweek cost both of us to work all weekend but it was totally worthed so no regrets! :)

During the long summer in Turkey, I really never got to train for the upcoming Gold Rush 30hr race. As a matter of fact, I didn’t feel like it except I swam almost every day. I guess my body needed some low impact exercise and I was ok with it. However after I got back to San Francisco, it was almost time for the race that we have been talking about since last year. I squeezed a few runs and bike rides into 3 weeks at least just to get my mind in the game a little bit. One of my teammates, Henrike also couldn’t train too much but our third teammate Tim was a different story. One weekend he’d ridden like 100 miles on a mountain bike, another weekend he won a 24hr mountain bike race! But he knew me and Henrike well enough that we could survive this race. The race was going to be held in Sonora county and would start at the race headquarters in Long Barn, about 4 hours drive from San Francisco. Tim and I left Friday afternoon and got the race central on time to check-in and to get our gear checked. We also got the maps and marked all the pre-set check points. Henrike arrived later and after her gear check, we worked on our gear and bikes till 12:30am. The race started at 7am with a short bike ride to the start where we had to get one check point on foot. We run into a forest and came out as the 3rd team after this 1st check point. Then we continued on the bikes. The race included (in order): mountain bike, kayak, bike, trek, rope, trek, and bike sections. All the checkpoints before the ropes section were mandatory with optional ones in trek and bike sections. We got all the mandatory ones with a few optionals adding up to 20 points and became 4th (out of 17). Throughout the race, there was mandatory individual and team gear that we had to carry at all times along with our food and water. When we ran out, we had to fill up water from water puddles and creeks along the way. We also had a gear box that we saw only 2 times during the race like the other teams. So planning how much food and water to carry, along with other gear was of utmost importance as it is in every adventure race. For 30 hours straight, we biked up and down trails and fire roads, kayaked on a lake, trekked in a canyon going down on slopes holding on to manzanitas, jumping on granite slabs under the full moon, and our feet being completely numb from the pain during the last biking section, sweating big under the heat, we crossed the finish line with smiles on our face. 4th place was a surprise given our lack of training but after looking at what we have done, we saw that we could have been easily at 3rd place if we didn’t make a few minor navigation errors. Oh well, we were ecstatic at the end after a great race with a great team. More info on the race: http://www.goldrushar.com/events/goldrush24houradventurechallenge2016.html

ABOUT

I am Professor of Marketing at San Francisco State University. I've also taught at University of Utah, American University-Beirut, Universite de Nice-Sophia Antipolis-France, Bahcesehir University-Istanbul&Silicon Valley, and Bogazici University-Istanbul. To learn more about my research publications, see my Academia.edu profile. As a marketing consultant, I have worked with brands such as Philips, SCA, and REI.

I am also an avid endurance athlete: climber, ultrarunner, adventure racer, skier, and mountaineer. This blog features stories from occasional adventures, some of which makes context for my academic research on risk marketing and risk consumption - featured in BBC, KelloggInsight, and Spectrum (Scientific American German Edition) among others.

7-SUMMITS PROJECT

I have been climbing the highest mountains on every geographical continent, known as 7-Summits:

1. Everest 8848m - Asia

2. Vinson 4897m - Antarctica

3. McKinley 6195m - North America

4. Aconcagua 6962m - South America

5. Kilimanjaro 5963m - Africa

6. Elbrus 5642m - Europe

7. Carstenz 4484m - Oceania

(8. Kosciusko 2228m - Australia)

Carstenz Peak is the real 7th summit with Oceania as the real continent but I keep Kosciusko in my list as well, which was part of the old list. I have already climbed 5 of them (in bold) and will be the first Turkish person (man or woman) to climb the real 7-Summits. Read its short story in Skylife Magazine of Turkish Airlines, November 2015.